Most people now eat more than 10 times the Linoleic Acid (LA) required for health, primarily due to processed vegetable oils hidden in restaurant food, snacks, and condiments.
While LA is technically essential, modern consumption levels far exceed biological needs, and that overload creates biochemical damage that continues for years, even after dietary changes.
Linoleic acid (LA) transforms into harmful byproducts called OXLAMs that damage DNA. It impairs cellular energy production and drives inflammation linked to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and neurodegeneration.
LA embeds in your body fat and stays there for years, continuing to inflict damage even after you clean up your diet. To understand how this happened — and how to reverse it — you need to look at Dr Mercola’s paper, published in Nutrients, which reveals information about the long-term biological effects of this once-essential nutrient turned metabolic disruptor.
The narrative review explores the explosion of LA intake over the last century and how skyrocketing levels have altered the metabolic landscape of the modern world.
“We clarify how LA became a dominant calorie source linked to mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic disease.”
LA embeds in your body fat and stays there for years, continuing to inflict damage even after you clean up your diet. To understand how this happened — and how to reverse it — you need to look at Dr Mercola’s paper, published in Nutrients, which reveals information about the long-term biological effects of this once-essential nutrient turned metabolic disruptor.
Linoleic Acid and Its Links to Chronic Disease – analysis by Dr Mercola
Story at-a-glance
- Linoleic acid (LA), once a trace nutrient in the human diet, now makes up as much as 25% of daily calories for many Americans, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and long-term metabolic stress.
- LA transforms into harmful byproducts called OXLAMs that damage DNA, impair cellular energy production, and drive inflammation linked to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and neurodegeneration.
- This polyunsaturated fat embeds in your body for years; it requires up to six years of low-LA eating to replace 95% of what’s already stored in your tissues.
- Common sources of LA include vegetable oils, processed foods, poultry, pork and even many products marketed as healthy, like organic nut butters and salad dressings.
- Reducing your LA intake by eliminating vegetable oils and switching to stable animal fats gives your mitochondria a chance to recover and helps lower your chronic disease risk over time.
Today, LA makes up more than 15% to 25% of the typical American’s caloric intake. That’s primarily due to processed vegetable oils like soybean, corn, and canola, ingredients you’ll find in nearly every packaged food and restaurant meal. What’s the cost of this overload? Your cells become more vulnerable to oxidative stress. Your mitochondria — the organelles responsible for creating energy — start to break down.
LA accumulates in tissue and breast milk and is linked to chronic illness. Most people now eat more than 10 times the LA required for health, primarily due to processed vegetable oils hidden in restaurant food, snacks, and condiments. While LA is technically essential, modern consumption levels far exceed biological needs, and that overload creates biochemical damage that continues for years, even after dietary changes.
The problem isn’t just how much LA you’re eating; it’s how long it stays in your system — LA has a half-life of roughly 680 days, meaning it takes six years of low-LA eating to replace 95% of what’s already embedded in your body fat. Unlike sugar or alcohol, which clear relatively quickly, LA lingers in your fat tissue and continues to produce harmful metabolites that stress your cells over time.
Your body’s mitochondria are especially vulnerable to LA overload — Inside your cells, LA damages a fat called cardiolipin, which is found only in the inner membrane of mitochondria, the structures responsible for generating cellular energy. When LA replaces more stable fats in cardiolipin, it makes the membrane fragile and prone to oxidative damage. This destabilises energy production, forcing your cells to either shut down or destroy damaged mitochondria altogether.
Click here to read the full report and analysis by Dr Mercola
Dr. Mercola has always been passionate about helping preserve and enhance the health of the global community. As a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO), he takes a “whole-person” approach to wellness, helping you develop attitudes and lifestyles that can help you Take Control of Your Health.
By sharing valuable knowledge about holistic medicine, regenerative practices and informed consent principles, he has become the most trusted source for natural health information, with a legacy of promoting sustainability and transparency.
Read more
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Linoleic Acid — The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
